


Birthday: The Taste of Regret Could Be Worse

by XenophonSpeaks



Series: Erejean Week [8]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drinking, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 09:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3687774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XenophonSpeaks/pseuds/XenophonSpeaks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In retrospect, it had probably been a bad choice to put Connie and Sasha in charge of planning his birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday: The Taste of Regret Could Be Worse

**Author's Note:**

> Day Eight of Erejean Week: Birthday
> 
> One time in college I accidentally got blackout drunk (seriously, the story is absolutely ridiculous). It was terrifying to wake up the next day and have no idea wtf I had been doing for the last 8 hours or so. In that regard, I've been Eren in this story. However, I don't drink anymore at all, so I've been Armin a lot more often. However you choose to enjoy yourself, please be responsible and make sure you have a friend around who is both able and willing to take care of you.
> 
> My only goal with this was to write from Eren's perspective and have fun.
> 
> (Also posting a wee bit early again because I have to be at work. Fun fact: I work an 8.5 hour shift tonight, get to come home and sleep for four hours, and then have to be at work again. Being an adult is so fucking cool you don't even realize it's cool, you just really, really hate it instead.)

In retrospect, it had probably been a bad choice to put Connie and Sasha in charge of planning his birthday.

“We are gonna get so wasted tonight, bro! It’ll be great!” Connie said, high-fiving Sasha as they led the way into the club.

“I’m turning twenty-five, Connie, not twenty-one,” Eren said with a wry smile.

“Whatever man, it doesn’t matter how old you’re turning.” Connie rounded on him, blocking the doorway into the club. Eren nearly ran smack into him, absently noting Connie was wearing more cologne than was probably advisable.

“What matters is that you do it right,” he finished sagely, clapping a hand on Eren’s shoulder and nodding before holding the door open as their group filed in.

“Please don’t let anyone get arrested tonight, please, that’s all I’m asking,” Eren heard Armin mumble from behind him. He laughed, turning around to throw an arm around him.

“That’s why you’re here, Armin,” he said, ruffling his hair. “To make sure we don’t get arrested. Or do anything too stupid. Also probably to try and get laid,” Eren added, glancing back at where Mikasa and her new friend, Annie, were already standing at the bar ordering drinks.

“Shh, don’t say that!” Armin hissed, face reddening. “I’ll tell Connie you said he had a nice ass.”

“What? Connie knows I think he has a nice ass. HEY, CONNIE,” Eren yelled toward the bar where Connie was already stationed. “YOUR ASS IS FANTASTIC.”

“FUCK YEAH IT IS! THANKS BRO!” Connie yelled back, saluting with his drink before finishing the glass in one go.

Eren looked back at Armin, raising his eyebrows. Armin glowered, mumbling something about idiots as he shrugged Eren off to sulk off toward the bar. It didn’t really help his case any when he stopped to stand directly next to Annie.

He turned around to survey the room, standing a few feet in from the door, hands in his pockets as he drank in the atmosphere around him. Music was playing loud enough that he couldn’t make out much conversation beyond laughter and drunken yelling for the most part, but the music itself had a fun beat and he found himself bouncing lightly where he stood. Blue and purple lights zipped around the room, making everything sparkle at irregular intervals. It was actually really crowded, Eren noted silently. A lot of people were dancing in front of the dias where the DJ stood, but even more people seemed to fill the tables scattered throughout the room.

He felt a little out of place. Probably should have dressed better, he thought, looking down at his dark skinny jeans and tight green shirt. He wasn’t really one for fashion, though. His tattered chucks and white belt were about the only claims he could make to having a decent sense of fashion, and considering the beat-up state they were in, he more or less couldn’t make any claims at all.

“Shots, shots, shots!” Sasha chanted, suddenly appearing before Eren with three small glasses clasped awkwardly between her hands.

“What is it?” he asked, sniffing at the glass cautiously as he accepted one from her.

It smelled like pure alcohol and regret.

Sasha shook her head vehemently, bouncing in place and nearly spilling the other two drinks all down the front of her outfit.

“No questions! Only birthdays and fun! Now drink!” she ordered, shoving his hand toward his mouth. He gulped it down as ordered, shuddering at the taste.

After two more shots downed in successive order, Eren was certain: That was definitely the taste of regret.

“WOO!” Sasha yelled, thumping him loudly on the back. “This is going to be such a great birthday! You’ll never forget it!”

Based on the strange sense of foreboding Eren was currently experiencing, he wasn’t so sure.

He followed Sasha back toward the bar, watching as Mikasa and Annie sipped on what looked to be wine –how they managed that in a club, he couldn’t guess— and attempted to ignore the men stealing furtive glances at them. Armin, for his part, appeared to be determined to at least block any potential flirting that might come Annie’s way, what with the way he was practically glued to her side.

“Someone else has to buy Eren a drink now,” Sasha declared cheerfully, slamming the empty shot glasses on the counter. “Come on, Armin. You’re turn.”

“What? I’m not even drinking tonight. I’m the DD.”

“Armin, it is Eren’s birthday tonight and we all agreed we were going to take turns buying him drinks. You are _not_ backing out just because you’re also playing DD,” Sasha said, leaning over the bar threateningly. Behind her, Connie raised up to glare over her shoulder at Armin, nodding.

“ _Fine_ ,” Armin sighed, pulling out his wallet and giving the bartender his card to start a tab. “What do you even want, Eren?”

Eren shrugged. “Pretty sure that’s up to you. That’s half the fun of buying someone else drinks, anyway.”

Armin considered that, finally nodding and placing an order for something Eren had never heard of. When the bartender handed him the drink, he passed it toward Eren with a smug look.

“You will regret this.”

Eren suspected most of his feelings tonight would involve regret on some level, but he was accepting of the fact and simply smiled as he took a drink.

He immediately choked, eyes burning. Annie turned to level a glare at him which he felt probably said something along the lines of, “If you spit that on me I will destroy you,” to which Eren shook his head in understanding, backing a step away just in case.

“What the fuck is this?” he rasped once he was certain he wasn’t going to spit anything on anyone.

Armin’s expression now looked both smug and all too pleased with himself. “Drink up,” was all he said.

-

By the end of Armin’s mystery drink, Eren was really starting to feel it.

“Are you dancing?” Mikasa asked him, and Eren became aware of the fact that yeah, he kind of was dancing in place near the bar, another drink (this one from Annie, and by far the best tasting he’d had so far) in his hand.

“I guess so. This song just has a nice beat,” he said, bumping his hip against her’s and nearly jostling her out of her chair. She gave a soft huff that Eren knew to be laughter, smiling at him.

“I’ll go dance with you if you want a dance partner,” she said, turning to face him. She was wearing a pretty black and red dress with long black leggings and low heels. Anyone else wearing that would likely not have been able to dance too well, but Eren knew better than to doubt Mikasa’s dancing abilities, heels or no.

Instead of answering, he simply picked her up straight out of her chair and hauled her off toward the dance floor, her laughter soft in his ear as she turned to wave at Annie. Eren glanced back to find Annie smiling at their retreating forms, Armin dropping surreptitiously into Mikasa’s now-vacant chair.

“You’re dating her, aren’t you?” he asked loudly over the music, setting her down near the edge of the mass of dancing bodies. Mikasa looked at him in surprise, but nodded.

“How did you know?”

“I’m your brother. Also my gaydar is strong as fuck,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading her into the crowd. “You might want to tell Armin, though. He’s going to be heartbroken when he finds out. Best to get that over with sooner rather than later.”

Mikasa smiled, but her expression quickly faded into one of concentrated abandon as they began to dance. Eren was considered by and large to be a great dancer, but most of his dancing experience had come from partnering with Mikasa over the years. Her body moved with a precision and grace that had athletes weeping with envy—literally, because one time Sasha, a long time volleyball player and high school state champ, was brought to tears while watching Mikasa dominate the dancefloor.

Eren let himself go, moving effortlessly to the beat and stopping to occasionally spin Mikasa or intentionally bump her in an effort to get her to laugh or smile. After a while he began to notice that they were gaining a small audience, though he didn’t really pay them much attention.

Not until one asshole knocked straight into his sister and almost sent her toppling into Eren.

“What the fuck?” Eren spat, giving the guy a shove. “Watch what you’re doing, asshole.”

Eren immediately realized that while the fall may have been an accident, this guy was definitely checking out his sister. The way the guy kept glancing between him and Mikasa like he was trying to decide if they were together had Eren’s teeth grinding together. Not because he was pissed she was being hit on (she was definitely capable of handling that herself) but because this guy was incredibly fucking hot, with his shaggy two-toned hair, pierced lip, eyebrow stud, and tight-fitting black shirt. Eren glanced down, noting the guy was wearing dark jeans that hugged his hips and ass just right.

Fuck. Mikasa _always_ attracted his type, and they were always, always straight.

“Sorry man, I’m not very good at dancing and kind of tripped over myself,” the guy said. He seemed sincere enough, but Eren was feeling too bitter and probably too drunk to just let it slide entirely.

“Whatever. Leave my sister alone,” he bit out, turning toward Mikasa who appeared entirely unbothered by everything in a way that only served to irritate Eren further. “Let’s go get another drink.”

“Let me buy you one as an apology,” the guy said, trailing after them and looking entirely unphased by Eren’s anger.

“She doesn’t need you to buy her a drink,” Eren said, shooting a glare over his shoulder as he herded Mikasa ahead of him.

“I meant let me buy _you_ a drink, idiot,” the guy said, irritation finally leaking into his voice. Eren almost tripped over his own shoes, turning around to fully look at the guy with a bewildered expression.

“You look really pissed off. Plus I heard your friends saying it was your birthday earlier. I don’t want to ruin your night or something,” the guy said, running a hand through his hair in a way that was probably meant to show frustration but instead came across sexy as hell according to Eren’s inebriated libido. Part of him was convinced the guy was just trying to find an excuse to follow Mikasa around, but the promise of free alcohol wasn’t something Eren felt like turning down by this point in the night.

“Yeah, ok,” he finally agreed.

“Great! My name’s Jean,” he said, reaching out to shake Eren’s hand, which Eren returned with a mumbled, “Eren.”

The guy, Jean, threw an arm around Eren and grinned at him in a way Eren found irritatingly charming. “So, Eren,” he said, leading him toward the bar, “What can I get for you?”

-

Two hours later and Eren wasn’t sure what the hell was going on anymore. Armin was crying at the bar and drowning his sorrows in cup after cup of ice water, Sasha had almost gotten kicked out for dancing on the bar, Connie was so plastered he was now shirtless and rolling around from place to place talking about the universe and how we were all actually one person or something, and Mikasa and Annie were dancing between intense make-out sessions on the dancefloor.

Eren could barely focus on anything other than his new best friend, whose name he couldn’t remember. He looked a lot like a very pretty horse. Horses were Eren’s favorite animal. He told the guy so.

“You are the funniest fucking guy, holy shit,” the horse guy said. Horseface, Eren decided.

“Nah, I’m jus’ real, man,” Eren slurred, finishing off yet another mystery drink. He’d lost count a long time ago.

“No way, man, you are the coolest person,” Horseface said, leaning heavily on his shoulder. Eren tried to smell his hair but couldn’t really smell much of anything beyond alcohol at this point. “I’m so glad I met you. You’re my new best friend, ok? Ok.”

Eren laughed, laying his head on top of Horseface’s head. “Ok.”

“You also have a really cute butt,” Horseface finally said, sitting up far enough to lean behind Eren and look at his backside appreciatively. “You look super cute in those pants. Hot pants.”

As much as Eren felt flattered, he was so drunk that it was also funny. He was also so drunk that once he started laughing he couldn’t seem to stop. He leaned against the bar face first, trying to breathe through bouts of uncontrollable giggling.

“’m serious,” Horseface said sulkily, “Don’t laugh.”

Once he got his breathing under control again, Eren looked up and smiled. “Sorry man.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Eren distantly thought Horseface had a very pretty mouth that he’d really like to kiss. His lip ring glinted in the light. Eren licked his own lips unconsciously.

“You have really pretty eyes,” he heard Horseface say distantly as he leaned in.

And there Eren’s memory suddenly went blank.

-

“Ugh,” he moaned, consciousness returning slowly and painfully. His whole body hurt, but mostly his head, which was pounding a rhythm Eren desperately wished would slow down. He didn’t open his eyes, but judging by how bright the insides of his eyelids were, it definitely wasn’t nighttime anymore.

When something moved in the bed next to him, Eren jumped, blinking his eyes open rapidly and with a sense of great remorse.

“The fuck?” he rasped, feeling like someone had taken sandpaper to his throat. For a moment he couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d gotten there.

Once he looked over to see hot-guy from last night, torso bare where it was peaking from beneath the blanket, Eren suddenly remembered.

“Holy shit,” he said, wide awake now despite feeling vaguely like he might vomit.

His bedmate stirred, eyes opening blearily before focusing on Eren.

Eren looked down at himself. Also naked from the waist up.

“Holy _shit_ ,” the guy said, sitting up frantically before grabbing his head. “Ugh. What the fuck.”

“Um,” Eren fumbled, reaching for his phone. Opening that didn’t tell him much, other than the fact that he had a text from someone named Horseface that was entirely unintelligible.

“Um,” he said again.

“This is going to sound so bad, but I don’t remember your name,” the guy said.

Eren breathed a sigh of relief, shaking his head. “No, it’s fine. I don’t remember yours either. I have you in my phone as, um. Horseface?”

“The fuck? How rude,” he said, looking mildly hurt.

“I really love horses!” Eren rushed to reassure him, realizing how stupid that sounded the moment the words left his mouth.

They stared at each other for a moment.

“Oh,” the guy mumbled, “Well, I have you in my phone as Hotpants.”

Eren tried not to be flattered. He failed.

“Uh, my name’s Eren.”

“Jean,” said the guy, trying and failing to avoid looking at Eren’s naked abs. Eren knew his abs were fantastic. Nearly everyone had admitted they were impressive at some point or another.

“Look, did we like… have sex?” Eren asked, feeling lost. He kind of hoped they did, but he also was kind of pissed because if they had and he couldn’t even remember then it all seemed like a huge waste. And what if they hadn’t used protection? Eren felt like kicking himself.

“I don’t know,” Jean said, looking conflicted.

“You did not have sex,” said a voice from the floor. Eren and Jean both shrieked as Armin’s head appeared out of nowhere, hair tousled and face looking distinctly sleep-deprived.

“We didn’t?” Jean asked, sounding vaguely disappointed.

Eren could relate.

“No.”

“Then what the fuck happened?” Eren asked, gesturing to their state of undress.

Armin took a deep breath and let out the sigh of the greatly burdened.

“You both spent a good portion of the night acting completely ridiculous. Jean gave you a piggyback ride around for the latter part of the evening and Eren went around accusing people of like, stealing his birthday? I don’t even know. Sasha finally got us kicked out, and when we went to leave, _you_ ,” he said, pointing to Eren accusingly, “insisted that he was your new best friend –how dare you—and refused to go home without him. Then when we got here, you both decided to cook macaroni and cheese –this was about 4:30 in the morning by the way—and ended up somehow spilling the entire box of noodles, a pot of water and the damn cheese packet all over yourselves. You came in here to change clothes, but Eren passed out on the bed. Jean tucked you in and then asked me if he could sleep over. I didn’t say yes, for the record, he just kind of stripped and climbed into bed with you.”

They tried to absorb all of this. Eren looked over at Jean to find that he did actually have some orange stuff in his hair, which was probably cheese, so Armin’s story seemed pretty plausible.

“Where is everyone else then?” Eren finally asked. Armin groaned, flopping back down on the floor.

“All over the house,” said his disembodied voice. “I had to hold Sasha’s hair while she puked for two hours. Mikasa and Annie are sleeping under your kitchen table. I don’t know why, don’t ask me why, please,” he said, sounding like he was on the verge of tears. “Connie is in your entryway because I couldn’t drag him any further. He passed out in the hallway outside of your apartment before we could even get inside.”

The silence that followed this pronouncement seemed poignant as they all quietly pondered over their poor life choices.

“Thanks for taking care of us,” Jean said awkwardly.

Eren heard Armin sniffle from the floor. “You all owe me big time, ok. Like seriously.”

“We all owe you big time,” Eren agreed.

Eren’s phone bleeped at him after a moment.

“…Especially if you don’t want me to send these pictures to everyone,” Armin said.

He opened Armin’s text to find several pictures of himself vigorously making out with Jean.

“What the fuck, Armin!”

“I’m just saying.”

“That one’s not bad,” Jean murmured over his shoulder, pointing to a particular picture wherein Eren had his legs wrapped around Jean and was being pressed into a barstool, their lips locked together passionately. Upon glancing over, Eren noticed Jean had a large hickey on one side of his neck. He somehow knew he was responsible.

Face flaming red, he wordlessly sent Jean the pictures. “Good man,“ Jean mumbled, patting him on the back.

They all sat there quietly, wallowing in their respective shame and regret.

“So we didn’t have sex. Which is good because I wouldn’t remember and that would suck,” Jean finally said, leaning back on his elbows. “I wouldn’t, um, mind taking you out for coffee or something sometime, though. If you want.”

Eren smiled despite his hangover, kicking at Jean’s leg under the blanket. “How about breakfast instead?”

Jean kicked back, nodding and looking both thoroughly pleased and embarrassed. “Sure. Just let me, like, vomit first or something.”

Armin just groaned from the floor.

It could have gone a lot worse, Eren decided.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last prompt! I can't believe I actually participated. It was a super fun ride and I regret nothing. Thank you to all of you who took the time to read and leave a comment/kudos on any of my submissions. You all have seriously made me feel amazing and I can't thank you enough.
> 
> Want to be tumblr buddies? Come and say hello. xenophonspeaks.tumblr.com


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